


and in that way, be known

by elizajane



Series: hold it, and share it [4]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family Issues, Future Fic, Homophobia, M/M, Team as Family, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6861163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nursey and Dex get hitched on Columbus Day weekend their senior year at Samwell, in a ceremony al fresco on the bank of the Pond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and in that way, be known

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burning_Up_A_Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Up_A_Sun/gifts).



> This fic is another that started out life as [a 116-character Twitfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6353677/chapters/15450319). Sun made the request and ... here we are.
> 
> This has been lightly betaed by Sun (thank you!) and all remaining flubs are my own.

Nursey and Dex get hitched on Columbus Day weekend their senior year at Samwell, in a ceremony _al fresco_ on the bank of the Pond.

They’ve been together for over two years and been talking about marriage in shy fits and starts since the previous March. Dex’s parents still don’t want to acknowledge who they are to one another (“And how’s your...roommate? Doing well in his classes?”), while Nursey’s parents expect them to wait a few years -- maybe set a date once Nursey’s passed his comps at Purdue. Chowder and Farmer think it’s _super romantic!!_ and are their biggest (almost _too_ invested) fans, and they know that whenever and however they choose to celebrate, their teammates can be relied upon to throw a wicked good party.

But away from the noise of what friends and family think, Derek and Will listen to one another and know that it’s time. They don’t want any ambiguity, from any quarter, about who they are to one another as they launch job searches, interview at graduate schools, view apartments in strange Midwestern cities, introduce one another to new coworkers and academic colleagues.

“...and I’d like you to meet my husband, Derek,” Dex wants to say, in defiance of every relative who’s ever let their tongue dance around _boyfriend_. Wants to be wearing a conspicuously unmistakable wedding band when he goes home at Christmas, on the same hand Aunt Phyllis had studied a little too pointedly when he’d once settled it high on Nursey’s thigh.

“Maybe it _is_...I don’t know, heteronormative of us,” he admits to Nursey. They’re sitting on a bench along the Pond on a balmy spring day in May. Dex can’t believe their junior year is all but done, that Bitty will be graduating and that Chowder will be wearing the “C” next year. It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once to be twelve short months away from their own graduation.

Nursey is reading for his Chinese Poetry in Translation final and Dex is scrolling through the latest round of chat updates from his Masculinities class. One of the first years in the class has just posted a screed about the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal construct of state-sanctioned marriage and how it’s all oppressive bullshit. “Maybe I’m just…”

“Hey, Poindexter,” Nursey cuts through Dex’s building self-recrimination. He closes the the book of poetry over a place-holding thumb and twists on the bench to reach over and press a long, slim finger against Dex’s fretful lips. “ _Chill_.”

“But--” Dex tries again, feeling whiplash at the way now that he and Nursey _can_ get married it feels like they’re not supposed to _want_ to anymore. Two of the gender studies majors had gotten into a shouting match about it in class that morning and Dex had just kept his head down wishing he were brave enough to say, “My boyfriend and I are getting married because…” but he didn’t know how to finish the sentence in a way they wouldn’t laugh at. So he’d stayed silent, filling the margins of his notebook with defiant doodles of wedding cakes with his and Nursey’s initials spooling across the top, little stick-figure grooms, and lists of guilt-inducingly lavish honeymoon destinations: _Florence_ , _Cairo_ , _Honolulu_.

Nursey rolls his eyes and hooks his free arm around the back of Dex’s neck, pulling him in to nuzzle at Dex’s cheek. “Hey,” he says, “is this that girl who was on a roll about period suppression last week?” He steals Dex’s phone before Dex has a chance to say yes, it’s K.J., and scrolls down through the threaded messages. He snorts and shakes his head, handing the phone back, “Dude. I’m not _not_ marrying you because some punk white girl is bitching about how we’re somehow screwing her out of her chances at genderqueer polyromantic happiness.”

He tosses the phone back in Dex’s lap. “We can get married and not be assholes about it.”

Dex considers this, then smiles. “Can we be assholes about it in front of my Aunt Phyllis though?”

Nursey snorts: “I will flaunt my black gay-married ass in front of your Aunt Phyllis any time you want me to.”

* * *

They’re still talking about it when the spring semester ends. They keep talking about it during the summer while Nursey’s at his internship in New York and Dex is back at Samwell. He’s stayed behind on campus working tech support in the computer lab at the library. It’s weird being at the Haus with everyone else gone and especially having the bed to himself. But he and Nursey text constantly throughout the day and FaceTime at night and whatever the medium for communication it’s become a joke between them to suggest outrageous (and not-so-outrageous) scenarios for getting hitched.

The trouble is, Dex is one hundred percent sure he wants to _be_ married but _getting_ married just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

“You should know my parents might have given us the ‘wait until you’re done with grad school’ talk,” Nursey says to Dex, one night in late June. “But that _definitely_ hasn’t stopped Mom and Charlene from sending me blog posts about planning gay weddings on a regular basis. I think they’d gonna kill me if we elope.”

“Yeah, well, my parents would kill me if we _didn’t_ elope,” Dex tries and fails to hit the _haha my weird family_ note, hearing the bitter hurt and anger in his own voice. It’s stupid. They haven’t disowned him and they haven’t told him he can’t bring Nursey home to visit. When they do go up to Maine everyone is...pleasant. _Polite._ They’re on their best behavior.

Which, of course, just reminds Dex how unwilling they are to accept Nursey as a part of the family.

* * *

“Dude, we could wow your parents with a _destination_ wedding,” Nursey offers, a few weeks later. He’s flipping through magazines from the newsstand in North Station while they wait for the Downeaster to Belfast.  “Look: Can you get any WASP-y-er than getting married in a farmhouse in Vermont?” He holds up _Yankee_ magazine open to a spread featuring a straight white couple kissing on the white and green porch of a bed and breakfast up near -- Dex squints -- Burlington.

It’s the Fourth of July weekend and Nursey’s caught the train from New York to Boston so Dex doesn’t have to face the trip up to Maine, and five days at his parents’ home in Ellsworth, alone.

“Vermont.” Dex raises an eyebrow. “You realize my parents think Vermont is, like, a den of liberal, _socialist_ iniquity? Vermont is _Bernie_ country.”

Nursey shakes his head sadly, dropping the magazine back into its rack. “And here I had my heart set on --” Dex cuffs him lightly behind the ear just as their boarding call goes out over the loudspeakers.

Maybe Vermont _would_ be nice, though, he thinks wistfully as they put their bags above their seats and settle in an empty row. He and Nursey could just book a room somewhere, not tell anyone, and come back _already married_. It sounds like such a relief, to just send out wedding announcements rather than wedding invitations. Assembling a guest list for the actual wedding is an exercise he can only imagine ending in one of two ways: 1) no one in his family will acknowledge the invitations or attend the wedding, or 2) the members of his family who do attend will be there on sufferance. They’ll sit in stoic, Mainer silence -- a silence that will creep into Dex’s every memory of the day and ruin it forever.

He knows that he’s being emo about this. But every time he seriously thinks about a wedding, the vision that swims before his eyes is a boisterous Nurse family reunion on one side of the aisle matched by a tense, thin-lipped knot of Poindexter relatives being relentlessly _polite_ on the other.

Which is how they arrive at the end of August, back in the Haus for their senior year, no fucking closer to setting a date than they had been in March -- despite the fact that Mrs. Nurse (“call me Rachel, Will honey”) and Charlene between them have sent Nursey roughly a bajillion of what they like to call “inspirational” wedding planning links.

It’s the evening Nursey gets in from New York, while Dex is helping set up Nursey’s new Mac, that the idea hits him. He backs out from under Nursey’s desk, where he’s been fighting the dust bunnies for control of the power strip, and says, “What if we got married _here_ , this fall?”

“Like...at the Haus?” Nursey looks up from where he’s arranging his collection of new poetry chapbooks on the bookcase by the bed and purses his lips, looking thoughtful.

“Or, like...at Faber, maybe? I don’t know.” Dex runs his hand through his hair and sighs. “Maybe if we just … just _did_ it. Without a lot of fuss. _This_ is us --” he gestures around the room, but means the Haus, Samwell, the team. The people in his life who’ve never made him feel like what he wants with Nursey is a betrayal of his family’s expectations or some sort of tacky liberal agenda. “I know your mom and Charlene are trying to help, but I just don’t want to feel like I don’t fit in at my own wedding.”

He hears the words come out of his mouth and has a moment of panic at how they might sound to Nursey: like Dex would be uncomfortable as the exceptional white face in a sea of brown. As uncomfortable as he had been on Nursey’s behalf at the last Poindexter Thanksgiving dinner when -- for the first time in his life -- Dex looked around the table with painful awareness of just how _pale_ his whole family was.

He opens his mouth to take it back, but Nursey just drops crossed-legged, looking thoughtful, on the floor next to where Dex is sorting through the nest of power chords. “Dude, you think we could talk Bitty into coming up from Providence to do brunch?”

Dex grins in relief that Nursey gets it. “Yeah,” he says, leaning forward to press a kiss of thanks against Nursey’s jaw. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

* * *

It’s a crisp autumn Saturday, New England at its finest. They meet the justice of the peace after early morning practice, steaming hot lattes from Annie’s in hand and a grinning Chowder in tow. In the end they’ve decided to surprise everyone except a few key people, and Chowder has been beside himself for the past six weeks in anticipation.

“Now which one of you is William? Derek?” Ms. Ramirez, J.D., has driven down from Boston for the ceremony, and arrives smartly dressed in a cream-colored suit and a silk scarf that matches the leaves of the sugar maples and oaks standing at the water’s edge.

“I know you said you’re keeping it simple,” she says, reaching into the canvas tote bag she’s brought from her car, “but I like to bring a little something for each of the couples I marry.” She pulls out two boutonnieres -- orange rose buds tipped with pink wrapped with delicate sprays of green. 

“Oh,” Dex says, “that’s so kind of you, ma’am, but --” they’re just wearing fresh jeans and red henleys ordered fresh from L.L. Bean for the occasion.

“No, look,” Nursey plucks the flowers from Ms. Ramirez’s hand and tucks one bloom behind Dex’s ear, brushing his curls out of the way, then repeats the gesture with his own. “There.” He reaches for Dex’s hand and squeezes. “Perfect.”

At that moment, Farmer arrives with a bag of cider donuts in hand and her roommate’s camera in the other. The camera is for Chowder. When it had become clear that he wouldn’t shut up until they gave him something _official_ to do, Nursey had finally suggested he be their wedding photographer.

“Awesome!” Chowder says, reaching for the camera. He uncaps the lens and immediately starts taking pictures. There’s a slight pause, an awkward silence, as they stand clutching their coffees and wait for someone to _begin_.

“Welcome, all of you,” Ms. Ramirez says, with a smile, holding up her slim binder and assuming her official role. “Thank you all for gathering here on this beautiful morning to bear witness to the marriage of William Poindexter and Derek Nurse…”

The breeze off the lake is cool, and a few students walking by on their way to the dining hall slow and stop. In his peripheral vision, Dex sees a girl take out her cell phone and he realizes that they’re probably going to be Internet-famous around Samwell by the end of the day.

When Nursey leans in to kiss him there’s a scattering of applause; someone gives a whoop like they’re at a home game and one of the boys has just scored a goal.

Dex grins into the kiss, relieved and proud and so fucking in love he can’t believe his luck.

“I, um --” Farmer says, when Nursey pulls back just far enough to brush noses with Dex, then lean in to drop another soft kiss at the corner of Dex’s mouth, “--I brought -- I wanted to read you guys a poem.” She’s blushing but determined, fishing awkwardly with one hand in the pocket of her coat. She pulls out a piece of folded paper and opens it up against the side of her takeaway cup.

They turn to listen to her and Dex laces his fingers firmly with Nursey’s, feeling the as-yet unfamiliar scrape of Nursey’s wedding ring against his own knuckles. He thumbs at his own matching band, newly settled at the base of his ring finger, and presses his face into Nursey’s shoulder. He suddenly feels raw and on display even to just this small _ad hoc_ audience.

Farmer clears her throat and reads:

> _Since there is no place large enough_  
>  _to contain so much happiness,_  
>  _you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you_  
>  _into everything you touch. You are not responsible._  
>  _You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit  
>  _ _for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,  
>  _ _and in that way, be known._

* * *

When the four of them get back to the Haus, Bitty and Jack have done their part and the whole team is waiting for them, mimosas in hand, along with Shitty and Lardo who’ve driven down from Somerville with three dozen Union Square donuts. 

“Gentlemen!” Shitty hails them from the porch where he’s clearly been sent to stand sentry duty. “Quiche and pancakes and waffles and donuts and a great deal of brunch-appropriate alcohol await!”

They’ve been prepared for the good-natured chirping that’s lobbed their way. They know it’s their due for having snuck away and gotten hitched right under the noses of friends who’d been patiently waiting for the two of them to make up their minds about _when_ and _where_ and _how_ for months. The taddies, barely over orientation weekend, look slightly dazed but happy for a legitimate, grown-up reason to drink before noon.

Lardo’s in the living room, mixing drinks and passing out donuts where she won’t be in the way of Jack and Bitty in the kitchen. She reports cheerfully, while pouring orange juice into their glasses, that Jack has been put in charge of the waffle iron while Bitty flips pancakes and keeps an eye on the second round of quiche browning in Betsy II (“Y’all been cleaning her regularly like I told you to?”).

“And for the grooms,” Lardo winks, “a little _extra_ champagne. Drink up and come back for seconds.” Then she comes around the table to point out each and every donut variety -- Nursey picks out a bourbon caramel and Dex a brown butter hazelnut -- and tuck little drink parasols behind the ears not already bedazzled with flowers.

“Marriage suits you,” she whispers in Dex’s ear as she gives him a hug. “I’m so proud of you both.”

Dex knows she and Shitty are living together up in Somerville, but knows that things are tense right now with Shitty’s family; Lardo and Shitty refer to one other as “my beloved” but no one’s said a peep about matrimony in the three years Dex has known them.

“Thanks,” Dex says, aware he sounds dazed, and that even before drinking any alcohol everything feels slightly distant -- not unpleasant, but as if it’s happening to someone else. _I’m married_ he thinks.

“Hey,” Nursey appears beside him suddenly, their donuts on a paper plate in one hand and his drink in the other. “I promised my parents I’d call -- you wanna come with?” he nods toward the stairs.

“Yeah, I’ll be - you go, I’ll be right up.” Dex hasn’t actually said hi to Jack and Bitty yet, and the part of his DNA that comes from his mom is nudging him to make sure and thank the hosts before he gets much further into this bewildering and lovely day.

Bitty’s got his phone docked in the kitchen playing something bluesy -- Dex thinks maybe he recognizes the song from the latest Adele album? -- and he and Jack are in the midst of a good-natured argument about the way Jack’s organizing waffle distribution.

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Bitty, in a voice that tells Dex this is oft-trodden ground, “that if you pour the batter with a twist of your wrist-- oh, hey Dex!” He wipes his hands on the apron tied around his waist and swoops across the kitchen to wrap Dex in a blueberry and maple-syrup scented hug. “Congratulations!”

Jack stays where he is by the waffle iron, but acknowledges Dex with a nod and a soft smile that Dex figures is probably 98% directed at Bitty.

“Thanks,” Dex responds, holding his drink out of the way as Bitty’s arms encircle him, “it’s good, yeah. And I wanted to thank you both for--”

“You know Bitty’s in his element,” Jack grins, opening the waffle iron and prodding at the waffle inside with his pronged fork before he extracts it and pours the next. “You should have heard him after he got off the phone with Nursey when you called to ask.”

Bitty lets go and gives Dex’s hands a squeeze before backing up a step and looking Dex in the eye. “You okay?" 

Dex knows what he’s asking and swallows, “Yeah, I’m -- it is what it is.” He’ll call his parents … tonight. Or tomorrow. He’s been trying to figure out in his head what to say that won’t hurt them worse than they’ll already be hurt. But he _needed_ this, needed today to be a day that belonged just to him and Nursey and the family they’ve made for themselves.

Thankfully Nursey’s parents had understood, when he and Derek had Skyped with them and Charlene to share the news and explain what they were planning. The Nurse family had promised not to crash the wedding in exchange for permission to host a reception in Manhattan at Christmas. Dex is hoping all he’ll have to do is show up in a rented tux and shake a lot of friendly hands.

“You’ve let Nursey out of your sight?” Bitty goes back to the stove and busies himself pulling out the quiche.

“He’s gone to call his parents,” Dex waves back toward the hall. “I’m just headed up to say hi.”

“Go on, then,” Bitty sets the quiche down on the waiting cooling racks and grins over his shoulder at Dex, “get your butt up there and suck up to the in-laws. We’ll keep ‘em busy with food down here until you’re … ready to make your way back down.”

Jack snorts, softly, and Dex suddenly wonders exactly what happened between the wedding and the reception down in Madison last December. He remembers some … evocative … silences from the group chat and blushes.

“Yeah, well, I, um--” he mumbles, “I’m gonna go -- thanks again, you guys, and we’ll be --” and ducks out as Bitty and Jack start to laugh.

* * *

He finds Nursey sitting on the edge of their bed in the attic, elbows on knees with his phone in one hand, talking to his mom and dad on speaker phone.

“--oh, hey, and here’s Dex,” he says, when Dex sticks his head in the door.

 _“Congratulations, Will,_ ” Rachel says, breaking up slightly over the wireless connection. _“Derek was just telling us how the boys are all helping you celebrate_.”

“They are, ma’am,” Dex says, while Nursey rolls his eyes, “it’s been -- everyone’s really happy for us.”

 _“You have any plans for the rest of the weekend?”_ Jackson, Nursey’s dad, asks.

“Home game tomorrow afternoon,” Nursey relays, “and Monday night too, against BU.”

 _“Well, your father and I didn’t take our honeymoon until the summer after we got married,”_ Rachel says. _“It was nice to spend a few weeks in Paris when we actually had the energy to enjoy it!”_ She laughs, _“I remember how exhausted we were on our wedding night, I think we fell asleep before dark!”_

“Mom!” Nursey blushes, “I don’t need details.”

 _“Your mother and I would like to pay for a trip, as a wedding present, whenever you decide the time is right for your honeymoon,”_ Jackson breaks in again. _“So don’t either of you worry about the expense.”_

“Dad, I--” Nursey knows his parents’ generosity makes Dex nervous, but Dex catches his eye and shakes his head. He knows they mean well and he doesn’t want to come across as an ungrateful son-in-law. Maybe, he thinks, maybe next summer they could go on that backpacking trip through the Lake District that he and Nursey had been idly talking about. No one in his immediate family has been out of the country, apart from Canada.

“--thank you,” Nursey changes course, reaching out with his free hand to pull Dex in close and easy between his knees.

 _“Well, we won’t keep you from celebrating with your friends,”_ Rachel says. _"We’re so happy for you both.”_

Dex knows they mean it, and his chest hurts a little out of both gratitude and sorrow. Maybe someday his parents will be able to feel the same way.

Nursey says goodbye for them both, and then hangs up the phone. He tosses it aside on the mattress and pulls Dex down into his lap. Dex goes, pliant with love and the relief of having finally gotten passed the fraught decisions and myriad small actions that have led to this moment. To finally _be married_ to Derek, his beautiful husband. The man who’s currently pushing warm, broad hands up under Dex’s shirt to span the small of Dex’s back and skim the bottom ridge of Dex’s shoulder blades. Who’s pulling him down into a kiss.

“ _Mmm_ ,” Nursey _hmms_ into Dex’s mouth, “hey.”

“Hey,” Dex murmurs back happily, burying his face into the crook of Nursey’s neck.

“You okay?” Nursey asks, and Dex huffs a laugh into his shoulder, enjoying the small circling motions Nursey’s hands are making across his back. He knows everyone downstairs probably assumes they’ve snuck away to fuck but honestly he didn’t sleep much last night and practice has left him feeling pleasantly stretched and dozy -- particularly since he distractedly left most of his latte cooling in the grass by the Pond.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Dex sighs, not sure whether to be touched or irritated.

“Because I know you’re worried about calling your parents,” Nursey says, “and I know sometimes it’s hard for you to talk to mine. I _know_ you, dude. I know this isn’t necessarily an easy day for you.”

“It’s a _good_ day for me,” Dex pulls back to say, feeling a sudden need to be serious. He forces himself to look Nursey in the eye and say it. “It’s never been _marrying_ you that freaked me out, you know that, right? It’s just the wedding that felt...complicated. Thank you. For -- being okay with _this_.” He finds himself once again waving in a vague gesture that encompasses the noise from downstairs, their room, the gorgeous day outside.

“It’s good,” Nursey says, leaning back onto the bed and pulling Dex with him so they’re sprawled over the haphazardly straightened duvet. “It’s us. I would have rolled with whatever my mom and sister wanted to, probably so -- I’m glad you asked for this.”

“Okay,” Dex says, pillowing his head against Nursey’s shoulder and running his finger over polished white gold of Nursey’s wedding band. They should probably go back down and be social. Everyone’s there to celebrate with them, and he knows they have plans to Skype Ransom and Holster in to join the team for a toast, and Chowder has a speech planned, and there’s quiche to consume. But before all that Dex just wants to spend a few minutes tangled here in his husband’s arms, in the room where they’ve shared so many firsts together, and be glad for everything he has.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the fic comes from the poem Farmer reads at the marriage ceremony. The poem is [So Much Happiness](http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2001/10/01) by Naomi Shihab Nye and can be read in full at the Writer's Almanac. 
> 
> [Union Square Donuts](http://unionsquaredonuts.com/) is a thing if you live in the Boston area.


End file.
